Timber & Wood Products: Certification of Sustainability

What Standards, Certification and other Eco-Assurances exist and what do they mean?

What is Certification?

Certification of timber was established as a means of protecting forests by promoting responsible, ecologically sustainable forestry practices (as opposed to Sustainable Forestry which promotes a sustainable source of sawlogs rather than the ecology around and in the forests), with consumer demand as a driving factor. Technically, forest certification is ‘the process by which the performance of on-the-ground forestry operations are assessed against a predetermined set of standards’.

Forms of certification

A useful approach to certification and other claims, is to consider who actually makes the claim, also known as first, second, or third party claims:

First party indicates an internal assessment of a company’s own systems and practices.
Second party assessment indicates assessment by a second party such as a customer or trade association who assess the company according to the customer’s needs and any existing contractual obligations. This system maybe somewhat useful to the customer assessing the company, but is inappropriate for comparison with other companies and/or products.
Third party requires an entirely separate accredited third party to assess the forest operation based on separately agreed standards. The International Organisation for Standards (ISO) defines a third party as a ‘person or body that is recognised as being independent of the parties involved, as concerns the issue in question’.

Chain of Custody (CoC) Certification

This is an assurance process for “the path taken by raw materials, processed materials and products, from the forest to the consumer, including all successive stages of processing, transformation, manufacturing and distribution”. Through CoC the end user has assurance that the timber comes from where it says it comes from and was not, for example, mixed up in the timber yard or deliberately substituted. It is an essential component of any credible forest certification scheme.

Third party certification schemes

Third party certification schemes are recognised as the most valuable tool in promoting sustainable forest management. Third party certification schemes have the same main elements including Standards, Certification, Accreditation, Labelling and Chain of Custody. However, they can be very different and achieve varying outcomes. All third party certification schemes are based on standards that define the forest management practices of the scheme. A strategic consideration of these schemes, is what is included and what is left out?

When investigating or considering certification schemes, appropriate initial questions to ask are:

‘Are these standards based on best practice and performance minimums to protect biodiversity and local ecology?’
‘Who is involved in standards setting?’
‘Were all relevant stakeholders involved equally in the development of the standards?’
who is involved in assessing complaince to the scheme i.e., third party or self/industry assessment?

Secondly all schemes give ‘certification’ of some type to forest users. Considerations must be given to the comprehensiveness of the certification such as:

Are field visits conducted, or are plans just approved in an office?
‘Can the certification be trusted, is it trustworthy/honest?’ The transparency of a scheme and whether its certification reports are audited and available is just as important as the label provided. Hence, credibility must be considered when purchasing certified timber products;
Due to an increasing demand for certified timber, there is a danger standard setting and certification schemes will lower standards without relevant stakeholder consultation to increase the supply of certified timber from their forest industries.

	Is the scheme based on a set of clear minimum performance-based thresholds?	Does the scheme require balanced participation in standard-setting process?	Is the standard-setting dominated by the forestry sector?	Are field visits required?	Is there a label and well defined chain of custody available?
AFS	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
FSC	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
CSA	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
MTCC	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
PEFC	No	No	Yes	Not always	Yes
SFI	No	No	Yes	Unclear	No

	Is consultation of stakeholders in certification process required?	Is annual monitoring of certified area required?	Is the scheme transparent (i.e. are the standards and summary report freely available)?	Does the scheme prohibit the conversion of forests to plantations or other land uses?	Does the scheme prohibit use of GMO trees?
AFS	Unclear	Yes	No	Yes- but not effectively	No
FSC	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
CSA	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
MTCC	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
PEFC	No	Yes	No	No	No
SFI	No	No	No	No	No

Table 4. Certification schemes comparative table.

Acronyms: AFS (Australian Forestry Standard), FSC (Forest Stewardship Council), CSA (Canadian Standards Association), MTCC (Malaysian Timber Certification Council), PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes), SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative).

Toxic Baiting: Another key difference is on the matter of toxic baiting. The AFS not only permits the use of any legal chemical, it specifically requires Forest Managers to use legal means to control 'Damage Agents' inlcuding 'native mammals', many of them protected species.

Whereas FSC specifically proscribes 1080 use against native mammals in Australia. FSC certified companies may only use it for control of introduced foxes, which are highly destructive to native animal populations, and only as part of a biodiversity conservation program. The baits are buried and used in such a way that access by native carnivores is highly unlikely.